And The Downside To Temping

Can't quite believe that I neglected to post this little anecdote last week, but that's with the benefit of hindsight and self-checking. I guess at the time, at the earliest opportunity, I was in such a panic about it that I didn't want to write it down anywhere, in case that somehow made it true.

I've mentioned I have weird superstitions, right?

So, anyway.

On Wednesday, before handing over my invoice for the two days I'd worked at that point, I had to speak with the Chief Sub-Editor, because the advertisement artwork on the front cover was being flagged as a problem by the printers' online file delivery system. It was bleating about Spot colours, basically. I know from experience that this system will flag all kinds of non-issues as problems, simply because it's set to pick up literally every possible problem... So, when a document was set up using Pantone colours, but those Pantone colours were set to work as Process colours rather than Spot, it flags them as problems because they're still called 'Pantone XXX'.

For convenience, the system does include a Java-based system that lets you look at a PDF in great detail, even down to viewing it by colour separation, so I knew that the colours were Process, not Spot. I told Chief Sub all this, and one of his colleagues - also very familiar with the system and its overzealous warnings - chipped in to confirm what I was saying.

With that out of the way - literally my only concern of those two days, it's such an easy job to cover - I took my leave for the day, saying that "Ads-wise, we're all done-and-dusted".

So, naturally, when I got my train, it took two stops for the creeping paranoia to set in.

Had I uploaded all the ads?

Because, thinking back, I didn't remember seeing the inside front cover when we were looking at the front cover.

I got off the train and checked my phone, intending to call the office and enquire. After all, it wouldn't take me long to dash back and fix my mistake. But, of course, there was no signal on the Underground... And, besides, I wasn't sure I'd updated their number on my phone, since they moved offices.

Well, shit.

So I got back on the next train, resigned to the idea that I'd find an irate voicemail message from the Chief Sub as soon as the train broke to the surface.

There was no message.

Nor was there a message on my home phone.

And I wasn't going back till Friday.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well.

Needless to say, when I went back on Friday, the first thing I did when I got to my desk was check the uploads folder, to ensure I'd put the ad in there... because if it was in there, it would have been uploaded. Of that I was certain.

I breathed a great sigh of relief when I saw the file was, indeed, present.

Actually, that's a lie. I was very, very quiet about it. I considered mentioning it, making a big joke about it... Silly me and my paranoia and self-doubt... but eventually decided that wasn't such a good idea. People think I'm weird enough when I talk about how much I enjoy the work... Don't really want to add to it by telling them I lose sleep over imaginary mistakes, because I don't ever get to feel settled and comfortable in an office while I'm temping...